1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image display apparatus and method and image viewer program which are preferable for a digital camera, a Personal Data Assistance (PDA) and the like, and in particular, to an image display apparatus and method and computer software for viewing an image in which the image can be retrieved and displayed among a plurality of groups of images.
2. Description of the Related Art
In general, it is broadly executed to view images recorded with a digital camera and the like, on a screen of a personal computer and the like. For example, if the images are viewed on a Windows® operating system of the personal computer (Windows® OS by Microsoft Corporation), there are several methods such as for list-displaying contents of the images as shown in FIG. 14, for list-displaying the images together with a tree display of folders as shown in FIG. 15, for displaying only the folders as shown in FIG. 16 or the like.
Although only icons of the folders are displayed in FIG. 16, it is also possible to display details of the folders as shown in FIG. 17. However, in this detailed display, only a name (folder name), a type and a last-modified date (a date when the file was created) are shown, and such information are not shown as the number of files in the folder and a byte count of a total size of the file.
On the other hand, an image display apparatus mounted on the digital camera and the like has a single display mode for displaying a single image recorded on a storage medium in one frame, and a list-display mode for displaying a plurality of images simultaneously with thumbnails (reduced images) in one screen, so that a display form for playback may be switched properly. However, due to a small display screen on the digital camera, only a multi-screen display is performed as shown in FIG. 18 for list-displaying the images, or only such a display as shown in FIG. 19 is performed for list-displaying only the folder information.
However, with the display methods as shown in FIGS. 17 or 19, though a list of the folders is displayed, it has been so difficult for the user to understand what picture is included in which folder.
From such a point of view, a program attached with a function of displaying a capacity (size) of the folder as shown in FIG. 20 has been proposed. Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2000-244849 discloses an image playback apparatus in which a representative image is automatically set among recorded groups of images so that a desired image may be retrieved efficiently. Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2000-76281 discloses an image filing method and apparatus in which a plurality of representative images (for example, four images) among the images included in a folder are combined to create a summary image so that the images in the folder may be easily understood.
Furthermore, in image viewer software “Photo Loader” by Casio Computer Co., Ltd., a function is realized in which images recorded with a digital camera are divided into a folder for each shot date and the total number of image files included in a selected folder is displayed.
It is useful information for the user to display the size of the folder or the total number of files in the folder; however, it is not sufficient information to retrieve the desired image.